House immigration talks hang on health care

House immigration negotiators have given themselves until the end of the week to hash out language on what kind of health benefits should be available to undocumented immigrants seeking U.S. citizenship, a crucial issue for the talks.

If they can’t resolve this issue, the four-year immigration negotiations could come to a crashing halt.

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This week in Congress

It was only less than a week ago that the bipartisan House group announced it had reached a tentative agreement on a proposal “in principle” to be introduced in June.

The provision, in essence, said immigrants seeking citizenship must provide their own health care — and if any government entity provides them with services, they would be ineligible for permanent citizenship. The language was aimed at assuaging Republican concerns that the immigration bill would plunge the nation further into debt.

But as word spread, top Democrats — including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) — began to grow uncomfortable with the language their party drafted to prevent undocumented immigrants from taking advantage of government-subsidized health care.

Top Democrats are concerned that in emergency situations, for example, undocumented immigrants would be forced to undergo procedures that could bankrupt them, and eventually lead to deportation.

“They wrote it,” said Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), a member of the bipartisan group, referring to the initial language.

The situation is so tenuous that there have been constant Democratic leadership meetings with immigration negotiators — two in the past 24 hours. Just hours after a Tuesday afternoon gathering, Pelosi called a leadership meeting for Wednesday at 10 a.m.

At a meeting late Monday, Pelosi twice got into a “lively discussion” with Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) — a member of the immigration group — claiming that they went beyond their purview of negotiating an immigration compromise.

The situation illustrates how remote a bipartisan House agreement is, although it seemed close a few days ago.

House Republican and Democratic immigration negotiators are spending this week tripping over each other, trying to explain how the bipartisan accord they thought they had last week is close to falling apart at the seams.

It’s a big step back for the prospects of immigration reform. Without a bipartisan House bill, Speaker John Boehner’s chamber won’t have as much buy-in to the process.

Behind the scenes, the situation is getting messy.

Democrats and Republicans in the immigration group are increasingly frustrated with Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), who was noncommital to the health care language before it was released, while most of the group agreed, according to several sources involved in the negotiation.